from eSchool News: High-tech gadgets top kids' holiday lists
According to this article, requests for iPhones and advanced gaming systems were edging out more traditional types of holiday gifts for children.
"The competition reflects the toy industry’s, and educators’, ongoing struggle against “age compression,” the phenomenon of young children reaching for items used by older kids or even adults. These days, children are grabbing for more adult experiences at ever-younger ages, making it ever harder for traditional toys—and, by extension, traditional classroom techniques—to capture kids’ imagination."
This certainly rings true with what I've seen recently - e.g. my nice spending hours clicking away on what she fondly refers to as "My own computer" a hand-me-down PC that her parents put in her play area, or my fiance's nieces who seemed to be spending a disproportionately large chunk of time playing with two toy laptop computers with very basic math and language games (as compared to more traditional games, puzzles and dolls).
I'd recently heard about the popularity of webkinz (Chris' nieces each had multiples) and had bought my niece a shining star (similar to webkinz) for her birthday. ...now I'm trying out the new Barbiegirls.com site (at least trying to try it...but it is temporarily full - so I guess that's a sign of its popularity and/or the fact that lots of girls that just got the BarbieGirls toys (that double as a doll and mp3 player) for Christmas are still home on break from school ;)
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